Sunday, February 14, 2010

No Valentine's Day for me, thanks.

I don't like Valentine's Day.

This isn't a singleness manifesto like the many I've written before. I've come to terms with the fact that I like romance and pursuit and all of that (in theory). But I don't like Valentine's Day.

I don't like being like everybody else. Part of my resistance to admitting that even sometimes I want to be married was/is that so many other people want that. Good grief, am I a follower? (And just how many people have shared that, I wonder, the desire to be singular amongst the trillions of people who have ever lived?) While there are aspects of wanting to stand out that are prideful and a little shortsighted, there are some that are just part of being the sort of person you are.

Sharing a manufactured holiday with the whole country? Not the sort of person I am. If I'm ever in the kind of relationship where Valentine's Day observance might come up, it may be more in the breach than the observance. (For instance, it could be funny not to talk to each other at all for that day...clearly this wouldn't work if I were married, as anybody who has ever lived with me knows, but before then.)

So if there's somebody out there and we're working on our way to each other, I hope he's the sort of person who likes in-jokes and days that mean something just to us, because I'd rather celebrate the relationship I am in than the day the whole country is selling stuff for. I know, I know, not supporting the economy by throwing money away? How un-American.

We could celebrate "I'm married to the most wonderful woman in the galaxy day." I'm open to that.

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